by Len Deighton
‘This is your captain speaking…’
We’d arrived in Los Angeles: now came the worst part, the line-up at US Customs and Immigration. It took well over an hour standing in line, disconsolately kicking my baggage forward a few inches at a time. But finally I was grudgingly admitted to America.
‘Hi there! Mr Samson? Did you have a nice flight?’ He was chewing gum, a suntanned man about thirty years old with patient eyes, stretch pants, a half-eaten hamburger and a half-read paperback edition of War and Peace: everything necessary for meeting someone at LAX. We walked through the crowded concourse and into the mêlée of cabs and cars and buses that served this vast and trainless town.
‘Buddy Breukink,’ the man introduced himself. He flicked a finger at the dented, unpainted metal case that I’d wrenched from the carousel. ‘Is this all your baggage?’ If everyone kept saying that to me I was going to start feeling socially disadvantaged.
‘That’s right,’ I said. He took my bag and the corrugated case. I didn’t know whether I should politely wrest it from him. There was no way to discover if he was just a driver, sent to collect me, or a senior executive who was going to pick up the bills and give me my orders. The US of A is like that. He marched off and I followed him. He hadn’t been through the formalities but I didn’t press it. He didn’t look the type who would regularly read and update the Notes and Amendments.
‘Hungry? We have more than a hour’s ride.’ He had a sly gap-toothed smile, as if he knew something that the rest of the world didn’t know. It wasn’t something to be taken personally.
‘I’ll survive,’ I promised. My blood-sugar wasn’t so low that I wanted an airport hamburger.
‘The buggy’s across the street.’ He was a coffee-shop cowboy: a tall, slim fellow with a superfluity of good large teeth, tan-coloured tight-fitting trousers, short-sleeve white shirt and a big brown stetson with a bright band of feathers round it. In keeping with the outfit, Buddy Breukink climbed into a jeep, a brand-new Wrangler soft-top complete with phone, personalized plates – BB GUN – and roll bar.
He threw my baggage and Tolstoy into the back before carefully placing his beautiful stetson in a box there. He got in and pushed a lot of buttons, a coded signal to activate his car phone. ‘Have to make sure none of these parking-lot jockeys make a long long call to their folks in Bogota,’ he said, as if a short freebie hello to Mexico City might be okay with him. He smiled to himself and cleared half a dozen audio cassettes from the passenger seat and dumped them into a box. When he turned the ignition key the tape recorder started playing ‘Pavarotti’s Greatest Hits’ or more specifically ‘Funiculi, funicula’ delivered in ear-splitting fortissimos. ‘It’s kind of classical,’ he explained with a hint of apology.
He gunned the engine impatiently. ‘Let’s go!’ he yelled even louder than Pavarotti; and even before I was strapped in, the wheels were burning rubber and we were out of the car park and off down the highway.
I had arrived in the New World and was as bemused as Columbus. In this part of the world it was already spring, the air was warm and the sky was that pale shade of blue that portends a steep rise in temperature. The noisy downtown streets were crowded with black roaring Porsches and white Rolls-Royce convertibles, shouting kids rattled round on roller skates and pretty girls preened in sun-tops and shorts.
Up the ramp. On the Freeway that stretches across the city, the anarchy of the busy streets ended. Apart from some kids racing past in a dented pickup, restrained drivers observed lane discipline and moved at a steady pace. The wind roared through the jeep’s open sides and threatened to blow me from my seat. I huddled down to shelter behind the windscreen. Buddy turned the music louder and looked at me and grinned.
‘Funiculi,’ sung Buddy between chewing. ‘Funicula.’
Once clear of the ‘international airport’, its mañana-minded airline staff and its hard-eyed bureaucrats, Southern California reaches out to its visitors. The warmth of the sun, the sight of the San Gabriel mountains, dry winds from the desert, the bitter herbal smells of the brushwood flowers, the orange poppies in the bright green landscape that has not yet suffered the cruel heat of summer; at this time of year all these things urge me to stay for ever.
Racing along the road that is slung roof-high above the city, there was a view of the whole of Los Angeles from the ocean to the mountains. Clusters of tall buildings at Century City, and more at Broadway, dominated a town of modest little suburban houses squeezed between pools and palms. Soon Buddy took an off-ramp and cut across town to pick up the Pacific Coast Highway and go north following the signs that point the way to Santa Barbara and eventually San Francisco. At Malibu the traffic thinned, and we sped past an ever more varied selection of elaborate and eccentric beach houses: until houses, and even seafood restaurants, ended and the road followed the very edge of the continent. Here the Pacific Ocean relentlessly assaulted the seashore. Huge green breakers exploded into lacy foam and a mist of water vapour, and roared so loudly that the noise of them could be heard above the sound of the jeep’s engine, and that of the music.
Buddy took the gum from his mouth and pitched it out on to the road. ‘They told me you’d ask questions,’ he confided.
‘No,’ I said.
‘And they said I shouldn’t tell you anything.’
‘It’s working out just fine,’ I said.
He nodded, and dodged round a big articulated truck marked Budweiser, before flattening the gas pedal against the floor and showing me what speed his jeep would do.
We passed the place where agile figures dangling from hang-gliders threw themselves off the high cliffs and did figure of eights above the highway and the Pacific Ocean before landing on the narrow strip of beach that provided their only chance of survival. We passed the offshore oil-rigs, standing like anchored aircraft carriers in the mist. By the time we turned off the Pacific Coast Highway into a narrow ‘Seven mile canyon’ we were well past the county line and into Ventura. And I was getting hungry.
It was a private road, narrow and pot-holed. On the corner a tall wooden post was nailed with half a dozen signs in varying degrees of deterioration: ‘Schuster Ranch’, ‘Greentops quarter-horse Stud – no visits’, ‘Ogarkov’, ‘D and M Bishop’, ‘Rattlesnake Computer Labs’ and ‘Highacres’. As the jeep climbed up the dirt road into the canyon I wondered which of those establishments we were going to. But as we passed all the mailboxes on the roadside it became clear that we were heading up to some unmarked property nearer the summit.
We were about three miles up the canyon, and high enough to get glimpses of the ocean far below us, when we came to gates in a high chain-link fence that stretched on either side as far as I could see. Alongside the gate a sign said, ‘La Buona Nova. Private Property. Beware guard dogs.’ Buddy steered the jeep to within reaching distance of a small box on a metal post. He pressed a red button and spoke into the box. ‘Hi there! It’s Buddy with the visitor. Open up will yuh?’
With a hesitant, jerky motion, and a loud grinding of hidden mechanical devices, the gates slowly opened. From the box a tinny voice said, ‘Hang in to see the gates click shut, Buddy. Last week’s rain seems to have gotten to them.’
We drove inside and Buddy did as he’d been told. I could see no buildings anywhere but I had the feeling that we were being kept under observation by whoever the tinny voice belonged to. ‘Keep your hands inside the car,’ Buddy advised. ‘Those darn dogs run free in this outer compound.’
We continued up the dirt road, always climbing and leaving hairpins of dust on the trail behind us. Then suddenly, around a spur, another chain fence came into view. There was another gate and a small hut. Inside this second perimeter fence there were three figures. At first they looked like a man with his two children, but when I got closer I could see it was a huge man with two Mexicans. They were guards. The white man had his belt slung under a big gut. He wore a stetson, starched khakis, high boots and had a shield-shaped gold badge on his shirt. In his
hand he held a small transceiver. The Mexicans wore dark brown shirts and one of them had a shotgun. Like the chain-link fence, the men looked fresh and well cared for. One of the Mexicans opened the gate and the big man waved us through.
It was still another mile or more to where a cluster of low pink stucco buildings with red-tiled roofs sat tight just below the summit of the hill. The buildings were of indeterminate age, and designed in the style that Californians call Spanish. Passing a couple of mud-spattered Japanese pickups, Buddy parked the jeep in a cool barnlike building which already held an old Cadillac Seville and a Lamborghini. Buddy put on his stetson, looked at himself in the wing mirror to adjust the brim, and then took my bags. With my jacket over my arm, and sweating in the afternoon heat, I followed him. The main buildings were two storeys high and provided views westwards to the ocean. On the east side they sheltered a wide patio of patterned tiles and a pool about twenty-five yards long. The pool was blue and limpid, with just enough breeze from the ocean to dimple the surface of the water. There was no one to be seen except in the pool, where a slim middle-aged woman was swimming in the gentle dog-paddle style that ensures that your eye make-up doesn’t get splashed. At the side of the pool where she’d been sitting there was a big pink towel, bottles of sun-oil and other cosmetics, a brush and comb and a hand-mirror. Leaning against the chair there was a half-completed watercolour painting of bougainvillaea flowers. Beside it there was a large paint box and a jar of brushes.
‘Hello, Buddy,’ called the lady in the pool without interrupting her swim. ‘What’s the traffic like? Hi there, Mr Samson. Welcome to La Buona Nova.’
Without slowing his pace Buddy called, ‘We came up the PCH, Mrs O’Raffety, but if you’re going to town, go through the canyon.’ He swivelled his head for long enough to give her one of his sly, gap-toothed smiles. I waved to her and said thanks but had to hurry to follow him.
He went up two steps to an arcaded passageway which provided shady access to, and held chairs and tables for, three guest suites that occupied one side of the building. One of the outdoor tables still had the remains of breakfast: a vacuum coffee pot, a glass jug of juice and expensive-looking tableware of a sort that Gloria would have liked. Buddy opened the door and led the way into the last suite. It was decorated in a theme of pink and white. On the walls there were three framed landscape paintings, amateurish water-colours of local scenes that I was inclined to authenticate as O’Raffety originals.
‘Mrs O’Raffety is my mother-in-law,’ Buddy explained without being asked. ‘She’s sixty years old. She owns this whole setup.’ He put the bags down and opening the door of the huge green and white tiled bathroom said, ‘This is your suite. Switch the air to the way you want it.’ He indicated a control panel on the wall. ‘You’ve got time for a swim before lunch. Swim suits in the closet and a slew of towels in the other room.’
‘Lunch? Isn’t it a bit late for lunch?’ The afternoon had almost gone.
‘I guess, but Mrs O’Raffety eats any time. She said she’d wait for you.’
‘That’s very nice of her,’ I said.
The large brown-tinted windows gave a view of the patio area. Mrs O’Raffety was still swimming slowly down the pool. There was a look of stern determination on her face. I watched her as she reached the deep end and steered round majestically, like Queen Elizabeth coming in to Southampton. I could see her more clearly from here. The swimming produced a look of concentration on her face so that, despite the trim figure, and the Beverly Hills beauty treatments, she looked every bit of her sixty years. ‘It’s quite a place,’ I said, realizing that some such response was expected from me.
‘She’d get three million dollars – maybe more – if she wanted to sell. There’s all that land.’
‘And is she going to sell?’ I said, hoping to find out more about my mysterious hostess, and why I had been brought here.
‘Mrs O’Raffety? She’ll never sell. She’s got all the money she needs.’
‘Do you live here too?’ I asked. I was trying to guess at his position in the household.
‘I have a beautiful home: three bedrooms, pool, jacuzzi, everything. We passed it on the way up here: the place with the big palm trees.’
‘Oh, yes,’ I said, although I hadn’t noticed such a place.
‘My marriage went wrong,’ he said. ‘Charly – that’s Mrs O’Raffety’s daughter – left me. She married a movie actor we met at a benefit dinner. He never seemed to get the right kind of parts, so they went to live in Florida. They have a lovely home just outside Palm Beach.’ He said it without rancour – or any emotion – as a man might talk of people he’d only read about in the gossip columns.
‘But you stayed with Mrs O’Raffety?’
‘Well, I had to stay,’ said Buddy. ‘I’m Mrs O’Raffety’s attorney. I handle things for her.’
‘Oh, yes, of course.’
‘You have your swim, Mr Samson. The water’s kept at eighty degrees. Mrs O’Raffety has to swim on account of her bad back, but she can’t abide cold water.’ He stared through the window to watch her swimming. There was a fixed expression on his face that could have been concern for her.
‘And who is Mr O’Raffety?’ I said.
‘Who is Mr O’Raffety?’ Buddy was puzzled by my question.
‘Yes. Who is Mr O’Raffety? What does he do for a living?’
Buddy’s face relaxed. ‘Oh, I get you,’ he said. ‘What does he do for a living. Well, Shaun O’Raffety was Mrs O’Raffety’s hairdresser: L.A…a fancy place on Rodeo Drive.’ Buddy rubbed his face. ‘Way back before my time, of course. It didn’t last long. She gave him the money to buy a bar in Boston. She hasn’t seen him in ten years but sometimes I have to go and get him out of trouble.’
‘Trouble?’
‘Money trouble. Women trouble. Tax return trouble. Bookies or fist-fights in the bar so that the cops get mad. Never anything bad. Old Shaun is an Irishman. No real harm in him. He just can’t choose carefully enough: not his clients, his friends or his women.’
‘Except in the case of Mrs O’Raffety,’ I said.
For a moment I thought Buddy was going to take offence, but he contained himself and said, ‘Yeah. Except in the case of Mrs O’Raffety.’ The smile was noticeably absent.
‘Since you’re Mrs O’Raffety’s attorney, Buddy, perhaps you could explain why I’ve been brought here.’
He looked at me as if trying to help, trying to guess the answer. ‘Socializing isn’t my bag,’ said Buddy. He was silent for a few moments, as if regretting telling me about his employer and mother-in-law. Then he said, ‘Mrs O’Raffety has a social secretary to handle the invites: weekend guests and cocktails and dinner parties and suchlike.’
‘But just between the two of us, Buddy, I’ve never even heard of Mrs O’Raffety.’
‘Then maybe you are here to visit one of Mrs O’Raffety’s permanent guests. Do you know Mr Rensselaer? He lives in the house with the big bougainvillaea.’
‘Bret Rensselaer?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘He’s dead.’
‘No, sir.’
Everyone knew Bret was dead. If Frank Harrington said he was dead, he was dead. Frank was always right about things like that. Bret died of gunshot wounds resulting from a gun-battle in Berlin nearly three years ago. I was only a couple of yards away. I saw him fall; I heard him scream. ‘Bret Rensselaer,’ I said carefully. ‘About sixty years old. Blond hair. Tall. Thin.’
‘You’ve got him. White hair now but that’s him all right. He’s been sick. Real bad. An auto accident somewhere in Europe. Mrs O’Raffety brought him here. She had that guest house remodelled and fixed up a beautiful room with equipment where he could do his special exercises and stuff. He could hardly walk when he first arrived. One or other of the therapy nurses comes up here every day, even Sunday.’ He looked at the expression on my face. ‘You knew him in Europe, maybe?’
‘I knew him very well,’ I said.
‘I
sn’t that something.’ Buddy Breukink nodded. ‘Yeah, he’s some kind of distant relation to Mrs O’Raffety. Old Cy Rensselaer – the famous one they named the automobile for – was Mrs O’Raffety’s grandfather.’
‘I see.’ So Bret Rensselaer really was still alive and they’d brought me all this way to see him. Why?
14
We ate lunch very late. Mrs Helena O’Raffety didn’t eat much. Perhaps she’d had lots of other lunches earlier in the day. But she kept her salad scared, moving it around the huge pink plate like a cop harassing a drunk.
‘I’m a European,’ she said. She’d been explaining that she was, at heart, quite unlike her native Californian friends and acquaintances. ‘When I was very young I always said that one day I’d buy a little apartment in Berlin, but when I got there, it seemed such a sad place. And so dirty. Everything I wore got sooty. So I never got around to it.’ She sighed and this time speared a segment of peeled tomato and ate it.
‘It gets cold in Berlin,’ I told her. I looked at the sun glittering on the blue water of the pool beside us and the brightly coloured tropical flowers. I smelled the wild sage, breathed the clean air off the ocean and watched the hawks slowly circling high above us. We were a long way from Berlin.
‘Is that right?’ she said exhibiting only mild interest. ‘I’ve only been twice; both times in the fall. I always take vacations in the fall. It stays warm and the resorts are not so crowded.’ As if to offset the simplicity of her blue cotton beach dress she wore lots of jewellery: a gold chain necklace, half a dozen rings and a gold watch with diamonds around the face. Now she touched the rings on her fingers, twisting them as if they were uncomfortable, or perhaps to make sure they were all still there.